Boy, 5, Dies In South Side Rowhouse Fire

A 5-year-old boy was killed and at least six people were displaced early Friday when fire ripped through an apartment of a two-story rowhouse in a South Side complex.

Fire investigators believe a high-intensity floor lamp may have caused the blaze in the 7500 block of South Parnell Avenue, said Chicago Fire Department Cmdr. Tim Stokes.

Shatwan Fulton was taken from the burning building and transported to University of Chicago Children's Hospital, where he was pronounced dead a short time later. A hospital spokeswoman said the boy died en route to the hospital after suffering smoke inhalation and burns to 50 percent of his body.

Shatwan, his mother and two siblings had been visiting his grandmother, said Yvette Alexander, disaster specialist with the American Red Cross of Greater Chicago. He was among the four adults and three children staying in the first-floor apartment that night, she said.

The Red Cross provided relocation assistance to the grandmother and two other adults living in the apartment and to a family of two adults and one child living in the second-floor apartment, Alexander said.

Fire Department spokesman Will Knight could not say whether the building had working smoke detectors or where the halogen lamp, believed to have caused the fire, was found.